But just possibly I will be 30 feet below ground in a makeshift hovel, frantically attempting to teach myself the skills to survive in this terrible new world, building a fire using only rudimentary tools: a few sticks of kindling, a broken pair of spectacles, and a pocket copy of the Constitution. “Why isn’t this working?” I will be screaming. “Where is Google when I need it? Where is anyone?” My hands will shake so much that the fire will go out again, leaving only a dark char in the middle of the Bill of Rights.

But I look forward to seeing you, probably. I will probably bring you a copy of “The Mothers,” a great new book that you should absolutely read.

Possibly, though, I will be sitting in candlelight frantically striving to commit all literature to memory so that it may survive as the libraries burn and the servers crash.

But also just possibly I will be diving for shelter as the sky begins to rain hot ash and the well water goes sour. Once the air clears I will sharpen a stick to use as a staff and a weapon. I will set forth down the long road of blistered asphalt that stretches toward the horizon, beneath the dark and ominous cloud that has supplanted the sky. I will pass many cellars from which what sounds like a human voice will cry out in what sounds like agony, but I will have been warned, and I will turn away.

But also possibly we will know that the same predictors who got to keep their jobs after they said that Trump would never take the nomination and never take the White House have finally lost their jobs after they incorrectly predicted that they would be outside the radius of the first blast.

Probably someone will comment that “drain the swamp” was a terrible slogan.

But possibly the swamp to which Washington has reverted will need actual draining because of the mutations that are now afflicting the frogs. Their croaks will have begun to resemble the weeping of loved ones now lost. Each night that their awful voices echo to us over the marble ruins, the small flickers of hope in our hearts will wither and die.

Probably I will bring a tub of hummus and we will laugh and joke about what a Hunger Games the election was, using the term lightly.

Probably we will idly wonder what that CNN panel is up to. “Do you think Wolf Blitzer is finally sleeping?” we will ask, and we will laugh, indoors, secure in the warmth of civilization all around us.

But also possibly we will know for certain that wherever Wolf Blitzer is, he cannot sleep. None of us can sleep. Hologram Wolf Blitzer flickers sadly in an empty studio while an actual wolf stalks around in the ruins. There seem to be wolves everywhere now. John King stands next to an empty shell of a television that once displayed colorful states, mouthing empty statistics to no one in particular. Since the great Reaping, every state is a red state. Corey Lewandowski is no longer a CNN contributor, but this is small comfort. No one is a CNN contributor. Chaos and darkness cover the land. Fire is everywhere. No lives matter.

Probably everything will be fine, though. Probably I can come and we will have a good time!

Petri writes the ComPost blog, offering a lighter take on the news and opinions of the day.